Caged
by kamikumai
Summary: Every time Sasuke takes a life he feels it; a brush of sensation burning against his lips, and he remembers – no matter how hard he tries to forget. Warning: implied slash, and uh, unrequintedness?


**Word from the Author:** Just a little bit of SasuNaru, I've been so busy, and now that I have some free time, I am writing insanely. All the random, random things that just pop into my mind. This was one of them.

**Disclaimer:** Not mine. Never was, doubt it ever will be. Although a girl can dream...

* * *

**Caged**

* * *

Every time Sasuke takes a life he feels it; a brush of sensation burning against his lips, and he remembers – no matter how hard he tries to forget.

Time seems to pass slowly. The seconds drag by, each one weighted significantly more than he recalls. Each one heavier than the last. He thinks to himself that it is perhaps the solitude or the emptiness of this place that gives him this feeling. The oppressiveness is hard to escape. But he could have, had he wanted to. And maybe that's what's wrong – the fact that he has no intention of doing so. Instead, he suffers in silence. Never speaks unless spoken to.

He tries to think that it's the same as always. He never was one to talk. He much preferred to listen. Only now, there is hardly ever anything worth being heard. Not like there had been back ho—he kills the thought before it is born. Swift and brutal. Such a place no longer exists; he no longer belongs, because if he did, this self-imposed exile would be too much.

It's strange to realize just how long it has been since last he felt loneliness. He blames one person in particular, who showed him the meaning of friendship, of companionship – the one to whom his thoughts drift most frequently. The one whose very existence is so inextricably tied to that place he is no longer a part of.

_Dobe_. He clings to the word, and all its connotations, all the memories and recollections hidden within it. He never unbundles it, never examines the permutations, the various configurations of its meaning, of its significance to him personally, as he once would have done, as he used to do. He leaves it compressed, like a single drop of water upon his parched tongue. He allows himself no more, because he knows it's already more than he deserves. For what he has done, and what he can never undo.

He spends his time walking, when he isn't training, bleeding, passing out, recovering, training, eating, training, sleeping, eating, training, training, training. He feels the dank, dark corridors of Orochimaru's labyrinth leaching from him his sense of self, draining all colour from his world. Even when he dreams, he does so in black and white. The only colours that manage to remain, he's not surprised, are yellow, blue and orange. They were always brightest.

It is with little to no emotion that he reads the scroll Orochimaru finally places in his hand, in it, the details of his first assignment. He pulls it off perfectly. And from then on, Orochimaru puts him to work, getting him to do what he is now trained to do best—kill.

And yet, every time he does, those colours flare brighter than in even his most vivid dreams, blinding him for a fraction of a second, even as his blade slides cleanly through human flesh. He doesn't need his eyes to finish it, but he thinks to himself that this is perhaps a weakness he really should be rid of. Only, he does nothing to make it go away.

After awhile, it becomes almost as addictive as the kill. For a split second everything in his world glows bright once more, and as time goes by it grows, changes, encapsulates more and more of what it represents. He knows that it'll never compare to the real thing. But it's all he's got, likely all that he'll ever have.

Every time Sasuke takes a life he feels it; a brush of sensation burning against his lips, and he remembers – no matter how hard he tries to forget – bursts of colour so intense that they wash away all darkness.

And just for a second, he's alive again.

He's free.

* * *

Finis.

* * *

**Another Word from the Author: **So, that's that. I'm going to start posting another Naruto fic shortly, quite a long one, so keep an eye out for it, okay!


End file.
